Conformance to Standards

Our core belief is that all people have worth and dignity and deserve equitable access. To support this belief, Pearson adheres to the accessibility guidelines outlined in the revisions to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that were published by the U.S. Access Board in January 2017 and went into effect in 2018.

These updates apply to accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) as well as the content that is delivered within that technology. Section 508 now aligns with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), version 2.0 from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Accessibility Team for Assessments recommends that content developed by Pearson or our subcontractors conform to the most recent revision of WCAG, Version 2.1, to a minimum conformance level of AA.

Many Pearson assessment delivery systems also support assessment interoperability through conformance to the Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) specification.

Authoring accessible content requires an understanding of the fundamental principles of accessibility and interoperability standards, best practice guidelines for applying these standards to educational and assessment materials, and an understanding of the capabilities of the technology that will be used to deliver the assessment content.

Supporting Accessible Content

The Accessibility & Accommodations Team provides direct support to our internal partners in a mentor role not only to teach federal and universal standards related to building accessible content, but how those guidelines drive the authoring by subject matter experts, the operations of publishing the content, and how technology supports the needs of students with disabilities.

Services provided by the Accessibility & Accommodations Team include:

  • Partnering with content, publishing, operations, and technology teams to understand the needs of learners with disabilities and to develop better solutions to remove any access barriers.
  • Training our partners to author accessible content, including alternative text for use with screen reading technologies.
  • Familiarizing our partners with assistive technologies commonly used to support learners with disabilities.
  • Communicating with our partners about technology interactions between our internal platforms and external software and hardware used by people with disabilities.
  • Working with our partners to incorporate those assistive technologies within our workflows and train our partners to use these technologies during regular and repeatable quality assurance testing in the production process.
  • Review of items for access barriers and conformance to WCAG.
  • Reviewing our partner style guides to ensure maximum access is considered at the initial creation of item authoring and is carried through to the final product.
  • Partnering with teams to build more efficient models and processes to make content accessible.
  • Working with our partners on how to create accessible content in internal item banking systems like ABBI and Exam Developer.